


right where we left off

by gayprophets



Series: Everyday Kepler [9]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: 1 (one) mention of weed, Friendship, Gen, Humor, It's a little emo at the beginning but RAPIDLY gets better, i changed a bit about how thackers psychic phone powers work because i want to, not exactly canon compliant but its MY canon now mothefuckers, thacker and mama ribbing each other for 2k what more could you want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-26 06:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21369916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayprophets/pseuds/gayprophets
Summary: “Shut up,” Mama snaps. “You’re going backpacking.”“Yes.”“With the woman who kidnapped you.”Thacker sucks a breath in through his teeth. “Okay, sure, but -,”“With the woman who kidnapped you,” she says again, voice raising, “And made you go insane and attack people. Me, specifically me, I was in the hospital for two weeks.”Thacker sighs. “Okay yes, but she’s cool.”“She’s ‘cool’,” Mama growls, glaring at the wall of her workshop and hoping he can feel it all those lightyears away.“Yeah,” Thacker replies. “She loves weed.”-mama and thacker have a psychic phone call. the quell gets aggressively adopted.
Relationships: Mama & Thacker (The Adventure Zone), others but not the focus so not worth the tag
Series: Everyday Kepler [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1331774
Comments: 16
Kudos: 82





	right where we left off

**Author's Note:**

> titling this was indescribably hard

It’s not unusual for Mama not to hear from Thacker for long stretches of time. He’s always been like this - he’s busy, forgetful, and there’s no one out in Sylvain’s wilds to remind him, given that she doesn’t have the ability to call him. Really, three weeks is  _ not _ that bad. Given that she’s gone  _ six years _ without even knowing if he was  _ alive, _ she should by all rights manage to go for quite some time without, as Aubrey would say, _ getting all up in her feelings. _ Theoretically, anyways.

In practice, she’s quite well failing at it. She puts down her chisel with a sigh, knowing if she keeps going now she’ll do something without thinking, and wood is not very forgiving when it comes to unsure hands.

Mama sits down in her cheap blue office chair, rolls her way on over to her desk, where the mug of coffee Barclay had brought down sits, cooling. Thacker had given the mug to her years back, picking her up from outside the police station, handing over a little silver gift bag.

“What’s this?” she had said, shaking it a little before popping the passenger door to his truck open and hopping in. 

“Was gonna be your birthday present,” he replied, starting to drive off before she’d even managed to close the door again. “But I - well, you’ll see.”

She squinted at him for a long moment, suspicious, but pulled out the tissue paper and reached inside. 

_ Congratulations on getting arrested again! _ It read, bold black text on white ceramic, little bits of confetti around the words. She honked out a laugh. 

“You’re the  _ worst,” _ she said. 

“I’m the funniest person you know,” he shot back, not bothering to signal his turn. She had whacked him on the shoulder with the back of her hand.

Now, the text has faded from washing, the confetti all but nonexistent. She sighs and takes a sip, then almost spits it back out, betrayed. It’s decaf. 

“You’re a bastard!” she shouts up the basement stairs to Barclay. 

“It’s  _ 10PM!” _ Barclay calls back. “You don’t need caffeine! Love you!”

She grumbles back an  _ I love you too _ that she knows he can’t hear, taking another sip - since they’ve moved back into the Lodge, he’s gotten some  _ ideas _ about things, such as her sleep schedule. Mama rubs her thumb against the exclamation point. She doesn’t even remember what she’d been arrested  _ for _ anymore. She does her best to picture what Thacker had looked like back then, pulling over her open sketchpad and a pencil. If she can’t sculpt, she might as well draw.

She’s not lonely, not  _ really, _ she has Barclay, Jake, Moira, a very small handful of the other Sylphs who’d decided to stay here than cross back over, and more friends in town than she’s had since the  _ 80’s. _ She’s certainly not alone. Still, there’s this  _ ache _ sometimes, in her chest, one that doesn’t want go away, even when she harasses Jake into helping her in the garden, or when Moira tries to teach her how to play the piano, it refuses to be subsumed even when she slips into bed with Barclay at night, folds him into her arms. It’s not constant, but it’s present enough to bother. 

She sketches out the lines around Thacker’s eyes. She’s glad Thacker crossed to live in Sylvain, because she knows him, and she knows he’s happy there, but she would have liked a longer conversation. She would like to be able to  _ see _ him, to know he’s alright. There’s no danger of him losing himself again, but sometimes she sees his snarling face in her nightmares, slick black fluid dripping off of his snarling teeth -

“Oh my  _ Lord, _ Maddie, what’dya  _ want _ -,” Thackers voice drawls out of nowhere, and she yelps, reflexively throwing her pencil across the room.

“Holy  _ shit!” _ she gasps.  _ “Christ, _ Arlo! Don’t fuckin’ scare me like that!”

_ “You _ called  _ me,” _ he replies, a note of confusion in his voice.

“I did?” she asks. 

“Did you not mean to?” he asks, and Mama sighs, shutting her eyes to picture him better.

“I didn’t think I  _ could,” _ she replies. “I mean, I  _ was _ thinkin’ about you, but -,”

“Were you bein’ sad about me?” Thacker asks, a breath of laughter in his voice. 

“Absolutely not,” she replies, firm. “Never.”

“It kinda  _ sounds _ like you were bein’ sad about me,” he snickers. Mama rolls her eyes at her empty workshop, mouths  _ can you believe this guy? _ to the half finished sculpture of Ned.

“I miss havin’ someone ugly ‘round here to elevate my good looks,” she says.

“I shaved the beard,” he says. “You don’t got that anymore.”

“Oh yes I do, you fuckin’ twig,” she laughs, and he snorts. “Unless bein’ on Sylvain magically made you sprout an ass, I got plenty on you.”

“You’re bein’ awfully cruel to me,” Thacker says, and she can hear the smile in his voice.

“Also, I miss you,” Mama sighs.

Thacker makes a noise of disgust. “Gross,” he says. “I miss you too.”

“Wow!” she says. “What an improvement! You’re learnin’ how to use your words for emotional expression! Maybe Sylvain  _ is _ good for you after all.”

Thacker laughs. “I’m emotionally expressive!” he says, defensive. “I’ve always been emotionally expressive!”

“You hid your reunion hug in a damn  _ tackle, _ Thacker, don’t think I’ve forgotten! You should go to therapy for that.”

“I saved your damn life with that tackle, I did,” he grumbles. “Maybe I’ll let the  _ FB-fuckin’-I _ shootcha next time, if  _ this _ is my thank you.”

“He says, like someone afraid of givin’ me a hug.” She picks her mug up off the desk, kicks the chair into a slow rotation, and sips at her coffee. “Barclay’s got me on  _ decaf, _ now.”

Thacker makes a little retching noise. “I am  _ so _ sorry. How  _ is _ the missus, by the way?”

She snorts. “Ah, he’s good. Misses you, ‘course, but we’re real good. He’s keepin’ me busy fixin’ up the Lodge, makin’ me go to bed before midnight, the whole nine yards.” Thacker makes a noise like a whip cracking, which she doesn’t dignify with a response. He doesn’t have to know that he’s right. “Feds really screwed us over. Killed off half my damn rose bushes,” she says, scowling into her coffee. “I should sue.”

“Bastards,” Thacker says, with just as much venom as she feels.

“What about you?” Mama asks, thinking back to what she’s heard from Aubrey, who figured out that the crystal shards make a fine telephone for a goddess. They talk at least once a week, her excited voice bubbling over the line with Dani and sometimes Janelle or Alexandra, telling them all about what she’s up to and the people she’s meeting. She sounds happy, which is just about all Mama could ever ask for, especially when she and Dani finish each other’s sentences or she hears Dani smack a kiss on Aubrey’s cheek. Young love. “Aubrey, who actually  _ calls, _ unlike  _ some _ folks I could name, said you adopted someone. How’s fatherhood treatin’ you?”

“Oh  _ god,” _ Thacker says, and she can tell he’s making a face. “That’s  _ definitely _ not how it is and the  _ most _ horrifying combination of words I’ve ever heard in my life. I’m a cool uncle at the  _ most.” _

“Uh-huh,” Mama says, hiding her smile with a sip of coffee, because she’d said that too, back when she’d brought Dani back over from Sylvain. “Who is it?”

“Well, y’know how Sylvain can manifest herself?” he says. “So can the Quell.”

Mama chokes on her coffee.

“What?!” she snaps when she stops coughing.

“Yeah,” Thacker says. “Pretty neat trick, I mean -,”

“No, Thacker,  _ what?!” _ she interrupts. She’s shouting now, she realizes, but if a situation ever called for a raised voice it would be this one. 

“It’s fine,” Thacker says, cheery. “We’ve been going on hikes!”

Mama makes a noise that sounds like a rabid chihuahua rolling down a hill in a garbage can.

“It’s fine, really,” he says, mild. “She’s perfectly nice. Quiet, but you know how I like that.”

“Let me get this straight,” she says, putting the mug down on her desk with a thunk. At some point she’d leapt to her feet, and her chair is rolling steadily across the basement floor.

“Neither of us are ever straight,” Thacker says.

“Shut up,” she snaps. “You’re going  _ backpacking.” _

“Yes.”

“With the woman who kidnapped you.”

Thacker sucks a breath in through his teeth. “Okay, sure, but -,”

“With the woman who  _ kidnapped you,” _ she says again, voice rising, _ “And made you go insane and attack people. Me, specifically  _ ** _me,_ ** _ I was in the hospital for two weeks.” _

Thacker sighs. “Okay yes, but she’s cool.”

“She’s  _ ‘cool’,” _ Mama growls, glaring at the wall of her workshop and hoping he can feel it all those lightyears away.

“Yeah,” Thacker replies. “She loves weed.”

“You know what?” Mama says. “ _ I’m not sorry I broke your nose when I was knockin’ you out! _ You deserved it!”

“That was you?!” Thacker splutters, “I was wonderin’ why it was all fucked up now! Madeline you  _ bastard _ -!”

“Yeah!” Mama yells back,  _ “And I don’t feel sorry for it! Two weeks in the hospital, Thacker! Two!” _

“At least  _ she _ appreciates my cooking!” Thacker shouts.

_ “Has she ever eaten anything else to compare it to?!”  _

“I -  _ probably!” _

“That’s it!” Mama snaps, slacking her palm flat down onto the desk with a  _ thud _ she hopes gets across. “She’s comin’ to dinner when we get the gateway set back up. I can’t let this stand.”

“Oh,” Thacker says. “Okay.” He’s quiet for a long moment. “That happened a lot faster than I had planned.”

_ “Than you had planned?” _ Mama asks. 

“Well, yeah,” Thacker says. “I was gonna tell you, you were gonna yell at me, I was gonna yell back some, and we’d yell at each other for a couple’a weeks while I told you how alright she is until I wore you down and you stopped bein’ suspicious ‘n stubborn. Y’know, the usual.”

_ “The usual,” _ Mama huffs, more offended by the accuracy than anything else. “Well, I can’t just let someone eat gorp. You’re probably violatin’ some law or another against torture by givin’ it to her and callin’ it  _ food.” _

“It is food!” he says, laughing.

“No it ain’t,” she replies. “What do I need to know? Anything she likes? Other than weed. She’s not a vegan, ‘cause she eats gorp, so that keeps some options on the table.”

“Yeah. She asked to stay away from Sylvain - as in the goddess - so it’ll have to be sometime when Aubrey ain’t there. And she’s a little weird ‘bout bein’ inside. Hasn’t done it before, really.”

“So like you then?” Mama says absently, writing that down.

“Oh, fuck off,” Thacker chuckles. “How’s the gate comin’, by the way?”

“Dr. Drake’s workin’ on it. Says we got a good shot at it in a few months.” She hears footsteps coming down the basement stairs and turns to see Barclay on the last step, twisting his hair up in a bun and sticking it through with a hairpin like Moira does. 

“Everything good?” he asks. “I heard yelling.”

She waves a hand around her face “Yeah, just - Thacker,” she says. “Hey, actually, Thacker, Barclay’s here. Mind addin’ him in?”

“Y’all’re gonna give me a headache,” he grumbles, but Mama can feel it when Barclay joins their little telepathic phone call - the little hint of something that isn’t quite static increases, as does the barely noticeable pressure in her head. “Howdy, chef!”

Barclay rolls his eyes, grinning. “Still not a chef.”

“Howdy, slugger.”

“That’s somehow worse!”

“Thacker, tell him what your dumb ass is doin’ now,” she commands, walking over to retrive her wayward chair, because her knee’s starting to complain. She stretches up ever so slightly to kiss Barclay on the cheek as she passes him.

Thacker sighs. “I’m goin’ backpackin’ with the Quell,” he says.

Mama sees Barclay’s eyes bug out of his head. “You’re  _ what?!” _ he yelps.

“Oh God, here we go again,” Thacker says, and Mama cackles. “Maddie, c’mon, tell him it’s fine.”

“Ah, no,” Mama says, bringing her chair over and sitting down as Barclay moves her sketchbook aside to hop up onto her desk. “You claimed you had a sales pitch cooked up, I think I wanna hear it, and I don’t actually know how it happened. Start at the beginnin’.”

Thacker grumbles something inaudible, then launches into the story about how the Quell wandered back into his life, physically this time. She puts an elbow on the armrest and props her chin up in her hand, listening to the familiar cadence of his voice with a smile, laughing when Barclay introjects something incredulous.

The ache in her chest is gone.

**Author's Note:**

> hey im back i missed amnesty in the like month i spent not writing for it. you can find me at themlet dot tumblr dot com! comments and kudos are, as always, appreciated. <3


End file.
